Facts
******************************************************(This data is from beta 4, Vasari, at normal speed)
The Vasari resource upgrade techs do in fact provide a 5% increase per asteroid, per ~second.
The TEC resource upgrades provide an almost 7% increase per asteroid, per ~second.
The game "tics" ~twice per second.
Asteroid colonies do indeed recieve the resource tech bonuses.
A -10% allegiance modifier will yield 10% less resources.
To put this data in perspective, a modest sized Vasari empire (5 colonies, each with 1 crystal asteroid) will produce 900 more crystal per hour with the first resource upgrade tech.
Analysis
******************************************************If I had to take an educated guess at what point it is viable to start researching resource tech's, first I would have to decide how long I am willing to wait for the tech to pay for itself, and how much crystal and metal are worth in credits.
So for shits and giggles lets say:
A) I'm willing to wait 15 minutes at most for the tech to pay for itself.
50 crystal = 100 credits
C) 50 metal = 100 credits
The first Vasari tech costs 600 credits 50 metal and 100 crystal, or by my above conversion, 900 credits. If I want my upgrade to pay that off in 15 minutes or less I will need X resource extractors...
**Warning: if you don't care for math, skip to the last paragraph**
Assuming 100% allegiance on all extractors, the first upgrade nets 0.05 resources per second, per extractor. By my above conversion that translates to 0.1 credits per second per extractor.
900 credits / 0.1 credits per second = 9000 seconds or 2.5 hours for ONE extractor's bonus to pay for the total cost of the first upgrade.
I decided that an acceptable return on investment would be 15 minutes so...
15 minutes = 900 seconds / 9000 seconds for one extractor to pay it off = 0.1 (One extractor is a tenth of the extractors needed to meet the 15 minute quota)
So by these rough calculations, You should have AT LEAST 10 extractors before you research the first tech, and even then it will be 15 minutes before you get back what you spent, and start to profit from it. Remember 5% of 10 extractors is only 30 extra units of material per minute, or 1800 more per hour, so the increase in material is not drastic, even with 10 extractors. The tech is still very worth the investment in a 2 hour+ long multiplayer game.
Note: These calculations still roughly apply to TEC. Just remember you will need 10 extractors of the appropriate resource, and you get ~2% more of a bonus.
